


No Buyers Here

by Strixes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Pre-Series, Prostitute Dean, Sex Worker Dean, Young Dean, Young Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3445631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strixes/pseuds/Strixes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regular phone calls to check up on them don't stop it. Dean's there just enough to make it believable and Sam lies for him when he's not. It makes John press the heel of his palm to his forehead and groan. He's taught the boys how to spin a cover story all too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Buyers Here

"Where's your brother?" John asks. It's not the first time he's come back early- or more often late- to find Sam alone.

Sam shrugs, "Groceries."

Dean finds his way back to the motel an hour later with two jars of peanut butter and a loaf of bread and a bruise blossoming on his jaw. He freezes when he sees him. John isn't sure when Dean started doing that, freezing like a deer in the headlights when he comes back but it's been so long now that he almost doesn't notice anymore.

"Hope the other guy looks worse." John says.

Dean relaxes. He sets the peanut butter and bread down on the table. "Yeah."

"Peanut butter? _Again?"_ Sam says.

"You like peanut butter." John says.

Sam looks at him, straight in the eye. "No I don't."

Dean spooks again. He shoots a worried look at John then he cuffs Sam on the shoulder. "Yeah you do. You eat it all the time."

"Because that's all you buy." Sam says. He sighs and goes back to his homework.

John waits for Sam to go to bed before hauling Dean outside. Dean's eyes go wide whenever he looks up at him. He trembles. John lets him go. Dean never used to tremble. He's never been unduly harsh with either of his boys but for some reason Dean trembles these days.

"You want to go get into fights? Fine. But you don't do it when Sam's alone." John says. Boys fight. He doubts he'd be able to stop Dean if he tried but he can at least put a stop to him leaving Sam on his own while he does it. "I don't care why or who started it, but not when you're looking after Sam."

Dean nods and won't look him in the eye.

John gives him a squeeze on the shoulder, "I mean it Dean."

Dean nods again, "Yes sir."

\---

The Rugarou hunt went so far south it might as well have been in Peru. He heads back to the hotel where he dropped the boys off and finds Sam alone again.

"Where's Dean?" John asks.

"Laundry." Sam says before going back to his homework. He doesn't look up when he adds, "You only ever say Dean's name when you're mad at him."

John stares at the top of Sam's head for a moment. He drops his bag down, "Stay here."

"Where would I go?" Sam mutters sarcastically.

John grits his teeth but goes out the door. Sam's been talking back a lot lately. He doesn't know what's gotten into him. Dean doesn't give him any sass‒ no, Dean just disobeys him and leaves Sam on his own.

He heads down to the laundromat the hotel has on site for patrons. He doesn't find Dean. He takes a brief walk around the hotel looking for him but he doesn't find hide nor hair of Dean.

When he comes back the shower is running and Sam's still doing his homework. There's two bags of laundry neatly folded and laid out on one of the beds.

John lets it slide for now.

\---

He hikes out of the woods. There are two less werewolves in the world. He drops his pack into the car then checks his phone. There are three messages all in the last four days. He checks the date and realizes he's two days overdue.

The first message is Dean. They ran out of money. That was on Wednesday. The next one is Sam on Friday. Dean disappeared on Thursday, showed up Friday morning with bruises, then took off again. The last one is from today. Sam again. Dean's still gone.

John scowls down at the phone. Dean spent all the money then went out and provoked some fight and left Sam alone. Again. He's got a pretty good idea where Dean is if he went back out after the first time.

He phones the Hurleyville police department. Dean's exactly where he thought he'd be; small town lockup. He'd thought for fighting but no, _stealing_. Dean knows they can't draw attention to themselves and he knows he has to look out for Sam. Getting picked up for theft draws plenty of attention to them and Sam's been alone for days.

John tells the police Dean's exactly where he deserves to be. Maybe a week or two in a rinky dink town drunk tank will knock some sense into him.

\---

The monsters don't rest. It's a couple months before he can swing back and pick up Dean from Hurleyville. The man who runs the boys home tries to tell him some cock and bull story about high school dances. Dean's never cared about high school period.

The man tries to persuade him otherwise but he didn't leave Dean with the police so they could coddle him.

The man who runs the place says he'll talk to Dean. _Talk_ to him. Who does this guy think he is?

Dean's climbing into the front seat a few minutes later. He's quiet.

Dean's quiet for a while before he turns around.

"Sorry for leaving ya, Sammy." Dean says.

John clears his throat.

"And for losing the money." Dean adds.

John nods. "Learn anything from this?"

"Don't get caught stealing." Dean says then looks out the window and broods about it.

John can't be bothered to tell him to knock it off; that there are real world penalties for stealing and it serves Dean right for getting caught. Hopefully Dean will think twice before he tries it again.

John steps on the gas. There's a poltergeist in Illinois they need to catch up with.

\---

Dean's not at the motel. **_Again_**.

John had only planned to stop in to check up on them but when he gets there he finds Sam alone, sprawled out on the bed watching cartoons. This isn't the first time this has happened since he picked Dean up from that boys home. He'd swear Dean is getting worse.

"Where's Dean?" John asks.

Sam shrugs. "Dunno."

John clenches his jaw when he looks over at the other bed. It's still made up.

"He was out all night." John says flatly.

Sam's eyes go wide but then he shakes his head vigorously, "No. He went out early."

"Don't cover for him. I know he was out all night." John says. He tosses his keys on the table and sits down to wait. He's going to have a chat with Dean when he gets back from whatever girl's bed he's crawling out of.

"So what if he was out all night?" Sam says hotly.

"He's supposed to be watching you." John says. Those couple of months in the boys home clearly didn't send the right kind of message.

Sam makes a disgusted noise and heads for the bathroom, "You left me alone for two months."

Before John can chew him out for talking back Sam closes the bathroom door and almost as soon as he does there's a rattling noise at the motel door. Dean stumbles through it seconds later.

"Good night?" John asks sharply. Dean looks like a mess and John can smell the booze, cigarettes, and sex from three feet away.

Dean's eyes go wide. For a moment John thinks Dean's going to bolt back out the door. John doesn't give him the chance. He grabs Dean's arm and hauls him in. He pushes Dean down to sit on the bed and pulls a chair up in front of him.

John narrows his eyes in anger when he sees the look Dean is giving him. It's full of disgust and disappointment. Dean thinks he's disappointing? Well, he'll see about that.

He points an angry finger in Dean's face, "If I have to ride your ass about‒"

Dean looks away.

"Hey. You look at me when I'm talking to you." John snaps.

Dean turns back and slowly raises his eyes to meet John's own.

John gives him the what for about his behaviour the last year. Dean doesn't say anything until he's done.

"Got that?" John asks.

"Yes sir." Dean says.

Sam skulks out of the bathroom and buries his head in one of his textbooks.

"Go shower, you smell like an alley." John tells Dean. Sam doesn't need to be exposed to bad habits.

Dean winces but nods and gets up. He grabs his duffle bag and disappears into the bathroom.

"And pack up. You're both coming with me since it's apparently too much to ask for you to watch over Sam." John says. He rubs at his forehead. He knows this is probably his fault. He spends too much time in bars and chatting up the female witnesses and Dean's like a little sponge soaking up every bad habit of his.

"We' re _leaving?"_ Sam asks sounding far too exasperated for someone his age. "We just got here."

"Don't start Sam. Not right now." John warns.

Sam presses his lips into a thin line and gives him a hard look, it reminds him of Mary's father. Samuel would do the same thing whenever he saw John coming.

\---

This time it's different. John doesn't come home to find Sam alone. He comes back and finds Dean alone.

"Sam's gone." Dean says trying to cover up fear and panic with grim determination.

John has to stand still for a minute to let it sink in, ".... ** _what_** _?"_

"I- I looked everywhere..." Dean says as a tremor races through him, "I...I don't know...where he is."

John's jaw clenches. He drops his bag to the floor and starts checking the room to see if Sam was snatched or if he ran away. He has a feeling that Sam ran. He was upset about leaving the last town and he's had the glint to his eye like he's been waiting to do something just to get under his skin.

"Where the hell were _you?"_ John snaps. He can't find Sam's bag so Sam more than likely took off on his own. His youngest is alone out there in a world full of monsters. "Let me guess, you took off to go have some fun and when you crawled back here the next morning Sam wasn't here."

Dean is quiet. John looks up waiting for an answer. Dean nods as he stares down at the floor.

John heads for the door, "Come on. Looks like he ran."

John gives him a dressing down to remember in the car. Dean sits quietly except for the occasional, _yes sir_ or _no sir._

They find Sam four days later.

Dean barely speaks. It's almost like right after Mary died.

\---

Dean shapes up for a while after that, or at least he doesn't get caught.

\---

John catches him in a bar with a fake ID they use for hunts chatting up a group of men playing pool.

John hauls him out of the bar.

"You think that's a bright idea?" John asks as he pulls Dean along to the car.

Dean doesn't say anything. John pulls him around to face him.

"Well?" John demands.

"....no?" Dean says and then squeezes his eyes shut. "...but we needed the money."

John can still look down at him but he thinks in a few years that won't be the case. It won't be long before Dean's an adult; an adult that'll probably have a record a mile wide if he keeps this sort of thing up.

"So you thought hustling pool on three guys that could crack your skull open was the way to get it?" John asks. He shouldn't have ever taught Dean to cheat at pool.

Dean's eyes snap open and go wide for a moment before his face burns bright red. He looks down at his feet, "No....no sir."

John just shakes his head, "Goddamn it Dean. Try to smarten up."

\---

Regular phone calls to check up on them don't stop it. Dean's there just enough to make it believable and Sam lies for him when he's not.

It makes John press the heel of his palm to his forehead and groan. He's taught the boys how to spin a cover story all too well.

\---

It's late when he rolls into town and just shy of a week after he said he would.

He stops on the outskirts of town at a truck stop for gas. It's beside a strip club. His eyes linger on people coming and going as he waits for the tank to fill. The usual sort are hanging around the parking lot: trash and people who couldn't make it as strippers.

His eyes play over the parking lot until they jerk back to the huddle of shivering hookers. His face goes red with anger. There's Dean. There's his oldest picking up a hooker when he should be back at the motel watching Sam.

He shoves the gas pump handle back on the pump. So laundry and groceries is code for scouring town for hookers. He knew Dean wasn't the brightest but he didn't know he was stupid. No wonder they've been running out of money.

He marches into the station to pay for the gas and then stalks out ready to give Dean the chewing out of a life time. He marches across the parking lot towards the strip club.

That's when the car rolls up and stops in front of the hookers. A window rolls down. A finger points out and makes a come hither motion. Dean goes around to the passenger side and gets in. He watches the car drive away with his eldest in it.

He can't move. He stands there in the parking lot until a car honks its horn at him.

Dean isn't buying sex.

He's selling it.

\---

John lays low for a few days. It makes it all the worse because he _knows_. He knows what Dean is probably doing because he hasn't shown up yet. He knows that every day he stays away is one more day Dean will go stand with that huddle of shivering hookers waiting to be picked out and invited into a stranger's car.

He knows and he feels guilty as hell but he doesn't know what to do about it.

Obviously it has to stop, but how? He can't be there every waking minute to watch Dean. He can't leave them with too much money, it leaves them open to being robbed. He can't guarantee when he'll be done a hunt.

There's no point in even bringing it up if he doesn't have a solution for it. He can tell Dean not to but what's stopping him for working a corner as soon as he leaves? He's already been telling him to stop leaving Sam alone and he does it anyway. Telling Dean to stop isn't going to work.

He needs to figure out how to fix this before he picks them up.

\---

It's almost three weeks since he left for the hunt when he walks into the motel room. He made sure to come in the middle of the day. He doesn't know what he would have done if he came later at night or early in the morning and found out Dean wasn't there.

Sam and Dean are sitting at the table eating lunch. Sam glances over at him and gives him a dark look before turning back to his sandwich. He wonders what exactly Dean tells Sam about where the money comes from. He doubts Sam would keep quiet about something like this.

"Hey Dad." Dean says. He doesn't mention how late John is but he never does.

John looks Dean over. He doesn't look any different. He'd never be able to tell. He hasn't been able to tell. He doesn't ask how long it's been going on for, not in front of Sam- never in front of Sam- but he thinks probably since before he left Dean at that boys home.

He tosses down a stack of paper work on the table and hands Dean a pen. He glances over at Sam. He hands him one too. "Pick names that are forgettable."

"What is this?" Sam asks curiously. He holds the paper work up as he reads it over.

"Credit card application." John says. He hopes it'll be enough to keep Dean above the water.

Dean nods and keeps his eyes on the paper; pen furiously scribbling out a name, _James Hetfield._


End file.
